The latter, representatives of science and of literature, provide the indispensable adornment of the modern State.

But, in addition to this, they are the depositaries of a new force, which more and more becomes the principal guide, the influential regulator and even the innermost motor of human action.

Now, in a centralized State, no important force must be left to itself; Napoleon is not a man to tolerate the independence of this one, allowing it to act apart and outside of limitations; he knows how to utilize it and turn it to his own advantage.

He has already grasped another force of the same order but more ancient, and, in the same way, and with equal skill, he also takes hold of the new one.
In effect, alongside of religious authority, based on divine revelation and belonging to the clergy, there is now a lay authority founded on human reason, which is exercised by scientists, erudites, scholars and philosophers.

They too, in their way, form a clergy, since they frame creeds and teach a faith; only, their preparatory and dominant disposition is not trust and a docile mind, but distrust and the need of critical examination.